Each point represents the global score of a MEP (Member of European Parliament) organized per country or per political group at the EU Parliament. Hover on a point to get more information (1 = voted as recommended by BeeLife, -1 = voted opposite to BeeLife’s recommendation). Drag and drop to zoom, double click on the graph to reset the axes. Double click on the legend to isolate the MEPs from one politacal group.
In summary, on the graph on the right, the closer the dots/MEPs are, the more similar their voting patterns are.
The MEPs are represented by dots and the distance between them is (as much as possible) proportional to the similarity of their voting patterns. The MEPs are colored according to their political group in the EU Parliament. Hover over a dot to get more details about the MEP and their votes.
The graph may look a bit cluttered, but you can easily zoom in by
selecting a region with the mouse (double-click on the graph to reset
the axes).
You can also show only the MEPs of a specific group by double-clicking
on the group name in the legend. You can then add other groups to the
graph with a single click.
The exact values on this graph are not really important, what is
important is the relative distance between the points.
However, each MEP’s global score decreases from left to right along the
horizontal axis. The position along the vertical axis, on the other
hand, is completely independent of the MEP’s global score. Two MEPs can
have a score of 50 but have very different voting patterns. This second
axis helps to differentiate between them.
Technical details:
We computed the Euclidean distance between MEPs based on their votes: +1 if they voted as recommended by BeeLife, -1 if they voted opposite to BeeLife’s recommendation, 0 if they abstained or did not vote. We then used a non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) algorithm to project the MEPs in a 2D space that best represents the distance/similarity between them. A small amount of random noise was added to the votes to avoid overlapping points and null distances (that cannot be handled by the NMDS algorithm).
We show only those individuals who were MEPs (at the time of the vote) for at least 10 of the votes. For the cases where the MEP was not a member of the Parliament at the time of the vote, a score of 0 was used (in contrast to the computation of the global score). The reason for this is that the algorithms used here cannot handle missing values.
In this graph, the pink rectangles represent the 12 key votes selected for this dashboard (see the “Methodology & chosen votes” tab for more details). The dots represent MEPs, colored according to their political group. For each vote, a line is drawn if an MEP voted as recommended (the other types of vote are not represented). We only show the people who were MEPs at the time of these 12 votes to limit the clutter of the graph.
MEPs with similar voting patterns are grouped together. Votes supported by the same MEPs also tend to be close to each other and closer to these MEPs.
Explore the graph!
Despite high variability, women tend to have an average score that is 6 points higher than men. Younger MEPs also tend to have higher scores. On average, a 30-year-old MEP has a score that is 7 points higher than a 60-year-old MEP.
However, the differences between political groups are much larger than these gender or age differences. When we control for political group, the effect of gender and age disappears (it is no longer statistically significant). This is most likely due to the fact that political groups with higher average scores tend to have younger MEPs on average and a better representation of women.
The participation rate (% of votes in which the MEP was not absent) is similar between political groups (although it is lower for non-attached MEPs). However, there is an interesting correlation between the participation rate and the overall score. For political groups with a higher score (Greens, Left, S&D), the more the MEP participates, the better their score. For groups with a lower score (ECR, ID, EPP), the more the MEP participates, the lower their score. There is no correlation for non-attached MEPs and MEPs from the Renew group.
The last 12 columns correspond to the 12 votes considered here (see the tab “Methodology & chosen votes” for details). A value of 1 (blue) means that the MEP voted as recommended by BeeLife, a value of -1 (red) means that the MEP voted against the recommendation of BeeLife. The MEP could also abstain or be absent (gray). In certain cases the person was not yet or not anymore Member of the Parliament at the date of the vote (Not MEP, White).
This dashboard analyses the voting records of Members of the European
Parliament (MEPs) on policies relevant to bees, pollinators and
beekeeping, based on their choices over the last 5 years of the
legislature, showing how coherent they have been in voting to protect
them, the planet and EU farming.
A global score is then calculated for each MEP based on their choice on
12 key votes selected by BeeLife.
The methodology is closely based on the version of the MEP Watch website developed for BeeLife. This website focuses more on the individual MEPs. The present dashboard focuses more on finding patterns in the data, such as the voting behavior of the different political groups, similarity of voting patterns between MEPs, effect of age, gender, % of participation etc…
The raw data on the votes and MEPs was extracted from the ParlTrack website.
Selection of the votes
BeeLife has selected 12 votes considered as most relevant for pollinators. The votes and a justification of BeeLife’s position on the recommended vote, are listed in the table on the right. The methodology section of the MEP Watch website provides also more details on the selection of the votes.
Computation of the Global score
For each vote, a MEP can be in 5 different situations:
The raw global score is computed as the sum of the score for each
individual vote.
This raw score is then scaled to get a number between 0 and 100 with the
formula :
Score = 100*(raw score - min) / (max - min)
where
min = - (12 - Number of votes where the person was not MEP)
and
max = 12 - Number of votes where the person was not MEP.
Information about the MEPs
The age of the MEP was computed separately for each vote, as the difference between the date of the vote and the birthdate of the MEP divided by 365.25. For the global score the age of the most recent vote when the person was a MEP was used.
MEPs can also occasionally change of political group or even national party. For the summary tables and scores we also used the most recent affiliation of the MEP.
We used the gender information provided by ParlTrack on 2024-05-28.
About
Developed by Gilles San Martin in the framework of the EU Pollinator Hub project based on the votes selected by BeeLife and MEP Watch scoring methodology.
Interesting platforms that score MEPs’ votes on different environmental issues and also on other topics, created by various NGOs (and sometimes using a different methodology) :
This table lists for each political group in the European Parliament its position on the left/right axis and the national political parties that belong to it for each country. The number under parentheses represent the number of MEPs in each party.